ANCIENT ITALIC PEOPLE

any of the peoples diverse in origin, language, traditions, stage of development, and territorial extension who inhabited pre-Roman Italy, a region heavily influenced by neighbouring Greece, with its well-defined national characteristics, expansive vigour, and aesthetic and intellectual maturity. Italy attained a unified ethnolinguistic, political, and cultural physiognomy only after the Roman conquest, yet its most ancient peoples remain anchored in the names of the regions of Roman ItalyLatium, Campania, Apulia, Bruttium, Lucania, Samnium, Picenum, Umbria, Etruria, Venetia, and Liguria. Additional reading The basic guide is Popoli e civilit dell'Italia antica, 7 vol. (197478). Outdated but still useful are Joshua Whatmough, The Foundations of Roman Italy (1937, reprinted 1971); and David Randall-MacIver, Italy Before the Romans (1928, reprinted 1972). On the Etruscans there are three essential books in English that guide the reader through the bewildering maze of recent discoveries and research: Massimo Pallottino, The Etruscans, rev. and enlarged ed. edited by David Ridgway (1975; originally published in Italian, 6th ed., rev. and enlarged, 1975); David Ridgway and Francesca R. Ridgway (eds.), Italy Before the Romans: The Iron Age, Orientalizing, and Etruscan Periods (1979); and Larissa Bonfante (ed.), Etruscan Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan Studies (1986), which lists the many catalogs of exhibitions and other publications that came out as a result of The Year of the Etruscans in Italy in 1985. Among recent interpretations of Etruscan culture and history, the best in English are Mauro Cristofani, The Etruscans: A New Investigation (1979; originally published in Italian, 1978); and Michael Grant, The Etruscans (1980). Giuliano Bonfante and Larissa Bonfante, The Etruscan Language (1983), is a helpful introduction. Works on other individual Italic peoples, civilizations, and languages include the Ridgways' book, cited earlier; Luigi Bernab Brea, Sicily Before the Greeks, rev. ed. (1966); Renato Peroni, Archeologia della Puglia preistorica (1967); A. Alfldi, Early Rome and the Latins (1963); Gabriella Giacomelli, La lingua falisca (1963); Giacomo Devoto, Gli antichi Italici, 3rd ed. rev. (1967); E.T. Salmon, Samnium and the Samnites (1967); G.A. Mansuelli and R. Scarani, L'emilia prima dei Romani (1961); G.B. Pellegrini and A.L. Prosdocimi, La lingua venetica, 2 vol. (1967); and on Italic inscriptions, Oronzo Parlangeli, Studi messapici (1960); and Allessandro Morandi, Epigrafia italica (1982). Nancy Thomson de Grummond